The PlayPen
by Hoshi-tachi
Summary: Pretty little bunnies, playing in the sand... The security sucks, though. The author ought to keep a closer eye on them. Why, anyone could just walk away with one... Inspired by Rorschach's Blot's 'Odd Ideas'.
1. We Who Watch HP&Highlander

**Welcome to the Playpen!**

These, dear readers, are the various Harry Potter bunnies that show up on my doorstep and refuse to be turned away, but also refuse to grow up to their full potential, no matter how I feed them. So, by popular vote I'm putting them on show, in hopes that one of you out there will see their big, pleading eyes and find it in your hearts to take them in.

Each bunny may be taken in whole or in parts, directly quoted or not, so long as due credit is given. I also hope that you'll send me the links to these stories of yours, so that I can rec them in the chapter, whether they're this story exactly, or only inspired by it.

These stories may be short or long, crossover or pure, slash, gen, or even possibly het (though that last will likely be rare). This first one is going to be fairly unusual for its species, since I wanted to kick the Playpen off with a bang.

Remember, and be warned, the only purpose of these bunnies is to inspire…

* * *

_**We Who Watch**_

(Harry Potter/Highlander)

_Warnings: _Profanity; violence; intimations of child abuse; Timeline, What Timeline?  
_Disclaimer:_ I own neither Harry Potter nor Highlander, nor anything pertaining to either.

* * *

The Dursleys steamed. Impotently, for the most part, but nevertheless, they steamed. 

They'd have to take the boy into London- not that they'd had a choice, given that the trip was for his benefit. This, of course, added injury to insult, since they'd then actually had to spend money on the boy. Why couldn't that bloody teacher have minded her own damn business? The brat was six! Why in the world would he need glasses?

So here they were in London, seeing one of the few optometrists their insurance company approved of. The boy's glasses had proven to be horrendously expensive (to their eyes), and the way he stared wide-eyed at the city around them afterwards was positively sickening.

As a result, the Dursleys' behavior towards their nephew was poor indeed. Out in public as they were, they couldn't yell and scream their insults as they were wont to do at home, but they could and did do everything possible to show the boy how much of an unwanted burden he was. Their young son Dudley was greatly encouraged by this, and demanded presents for putting up with his stupid cousin's shopping trip.

Being the wonderful, loving caregivers they were, it took only a few fake tears before the Dursleys agreed, and they began to search for a suitable store.

Aunt Petunia clutched Dudley's hand tightly as they made their way down the sidewalk, but little Harry was left to trail along in the rather large wake left by Uncle Vernon. Every flash of color or motion caught the boy's eager eyes, and his head would twist and turn to watch what he had never been able to see clearly before.

Thus, it was no surprise when he slowed to look more closely at a colorful advert for a magic show; among other things, the Dursleys had made the word 'magic' anathema within their household, and Harry was astonished to find the forbidden displayed for all to see. His eyes trailed over the floating hoops, the bright flashes of light, the magician's tailed coat and tall top hat, and a deep yearning rose within him…

A couple of minutes later Dudley looked behind them, and then tugged on his mother's sleeve. "Mummy?" he asked. "Where's Harry?"

-

It wouldn't be true night for another hour yet, but the shadows were lengthening, and the sky slowly darkened as a frightened Harry wandered London's streets. There weren't many others out and about around him; he'd left the nicer parts of the city behind some time ago. Across the road, pubs and shops with pictures of women who had lost their clothes in the windows were brightly lit, but Harry remembered Uncle Vernon telling Dudley not to go near places like that. "Not without adult supervision, anyway!" the man had chuckled, greatly amused by his joke, though neither Dudley nor Harry knew what 'supervision' meant.

The door to one of the pubs opened suddenly, spilling out light and noise and people into the dusk, and startled, Harry darted into a nearby alley. He had screwed up his courage and tried to ask a few people for help, earlier on, but most had ignored him, while a couple of men gave him broad, friendly smiles that he found made him very uneasy. If he'd seen a bobby the boy would have gone straight for him, but any and all seemed to have vanished into thin air.

Shivering, Harry took cover behind a group of dustbins, curling his knees to his chest and trying very hard not to cry. He was mostly successful, only having to wipe away a couple of tears with his sleeve, and for a moment the sense of accomplishment almost drowned out his hunger and thirst, and the way he was starting to shiver.

He must have lost track of time, because the next thing he knew the last shreds of light were filling the alley, and two sets of footsteps were coming closer. Terrified, Harry pushed himself further back into the dustbins and hoped he wouldn't be seen.

Two men walked into sight a moment later, both wearing long overcoats and looking very grim. "This will do," one said, looking around the alley. The boy shrank even more into the shadows.

The other one simply nodded, and to Harry's astonishment pulled a long, heavy sword from his coat. Without saying a word, he lunged, but the first man had already pulled out a slimmer blade of his own and diverted it off to the side.

Harry saw little of the ensuing fight. As soon as a thrust succeeded in drawing blood he curled into a whimpering ball, his young mind first mesmerized and then appalled by the steady flow of crimson. That didn't close out the noises, though; the harsh clanging of blade on blade, the grunts of exertion and hisses of pain. And after what felt like an hour, a whispered phrase, _"There can be only one,"_ and a loud thud.

There was silence for a moment then, and Harry dared to lift his head. It was something he would always regret, for in that moment, the world came crashing down as bolts of an unearthly blue lightning wreaked havoc through the alley. Dustbins- not the ones the boy hid behind, or his life's tale would have been very short indeed- were hurled like children's toys, and bricks in the walls shattered as they were heated past their limits.

Harry saw none of this. One of the bolts had come too close, and blue lightning danced over his huddled form, tearing screams of agony from his throat as it burned his skin.

A second bolt knocked him unconscious. And with the winner of the Challenge distracted by the Quickening he was absorbing and unaware there was another person in the alley at all, none were there to see the lightning spark and sputter as it soaked into the boy's wounds.

-

"Clean-up on Aisle Seven," Erik Danvers muttered into his cell phone as he frowned at the two pieces of the dead Immortal.

_"A confirmed kill, then?"_

"Affirmative. Rosenberg won and headed off, probably back to the hotel room. I'll chase after him in a moment. Still no idea who the second Immortal was?"

_"None. No Watcher currently attached to him, and no one's found anything in the Archives to suggest we've ever seen him before."_

"Poor bastard," the field Watcher commented, looking down at the oddly serene expression on the decapitated head. "Dead without anyone ever knowing your name. Is the clean-up crew on the way? I really need to get after my assignment."

_"It's halfway to your position, ETA ten minutes. Think you can wait that long?"_

Shit. "If I have to. But you'd better get another Watcher on Rosenberg before we lose him. He doesn't like to stick around long after a Challenge."

_"Got it,"_ the controller replied, but Erik had stopped listening. A sound where there shouldn't have been one had him searching the alley and listening hard.

There, again- a thin whimper of pain. The Watcher followed it around a tumbled group of dustbins, to find a thin form in shapeless clothes huddled behind one that was, miraculously, still upright. "Aw, hell…" he breathed. "That clean-up crew happen to have a medic with them?"

_"Don't know, I'll check. Why?"_

"There's a kid in the alley. Seven, maybe eight, unconscious. Looks like he caught some of the Quickening, lots of burns." He knelt next to the still and mostly silent figure,

_"Bloody hell,"_ the controller echoed. _"That means he saw the Challenge… No good sending him to the local hospital, then."_

Erik noted to himself that the controller for London had a gift for understatement. The Tribune wouldn't be at all happy if they let the kid go, only to have him wake up spouting off about people with swords who had lightning inside them. And he carefully didn't think about the last option. Permanent silencing might be a necessary evil on occasion, but there was no way he would be able to stand by while they killed a _kid_.

"_We're in luck, there's a medic with the team. There's a small medical center attached to our headquarters, we'll bring him back here for treatment. Stay with him until then."_

Erik acknowledged his orders and switched off his phone, then settled gingerly onto the ground next to the whimpering boy. "Don't worry, kid, we'll take care of you…"

-

"Why are you hiding?"

The question, shyly asked from behind him where by all rights no one should have been, brought Methos' head around fast enough that he heard a series of pops from his abused neck. There was a young boy sitting at the table behind him, whose dark, messy hair and green eyes contrasted sharply with the white of the bandages wrapped liberally around his forehead and what could be seen of the rest of him. His arms were folded on the desk, and his chin was propped delicately on them as he stared curiously at the Immortal.

"What was that?" Methos asked, more sharply than he'd intended in his surprise. He'd heard rumors that a boy had been seen wandering around the London headquarters, but this was the first chance he'd had to confirm them for himself.

The kid flinched a little at his tone, but didn't move, seemingly content to watch him with those unusual eyes from behind horrible hard-rimmed glasses. "You're hiding. I… I was wondering why, sir."

Methos frowned at him. "I don't know what you mean. This is hardly hiding," he said, waving a hand around them. The London Archives might not be as modern and open as the main archives in Paris, but there was still no way to call his lurking about the stacks 'hiding'. Reminded by the weight in his hand, he turned and deposited the Chronicle back in its place on the only mildly dusty shelf. "Are you supposed to be in here?"

He looked back just in time to see the boy blush. "I didn't like it in the hospital," he admitted quietly. "It was too white, and I'm tired of lying down all the time."

A chuckle deep in his throat took the Immortal by surprise, and he moved over to lean against the chair opposite the kid. "Can't say as I blame you. I've never cared for it much either." Though that was mostly because of the endless potential for exposure a hospital environment provided.

The thought of exposure sparked a sudden, dark suspicion deep within him, but he carefully schooled his expression so that it wouldn't show. "My name's Adam," he said. "Who might you be?"

"Harry," the boy answered, sitting up. "And I'm six." Almost immediately one of his hands went to the loose end of a bandage and began to fiddle with it.

"Stop that," Methos chided. "Those bandages need to stay on or you'll never heal."

Harry blushed again and pulled his hand away, setting it docilely in his lap. "It itches," he complained.

Methos suppressed a smile. "That's good. When wounds itch that means they're healing." He ran his eyes over the boy again, this time paying more attention and frowning when he realized just how much of the child was covered by the bandages. "How did you get hurt?"

"The lightning burned me."

The Immortal's mouth went dry. "Lightning?"

Harry nodded. "Two people were fighting, and then blue lightning came out of one. Some of it hit me." The pit dropped out of Methos' stomach as the boy studied him closely. "It hurt a lot, and those men were really scary… but you have the lightning and you're not scary at all. Is that why you're hiding?"

Several curses in various languages ran through the Immortal's mind, some of which were old enough he could have sworn he'd forgotten them. His hands on the back of the chair were clenched tight, and Methos forced them to listen as he tried to think of some course of action that wouldn't end up with him outed to the Watchers and short one very old head. Running was always an option, even if it was one he had to take all too often, and he wasn't as prepared with escape routes and cover identities as he'd have liked. Bluffing it out was risky; not many would believe a child about his supposed Immortality, but the first seeds of doubt would be planted nonetheless. He couldn't afford that.

He could kill the boy. It wouldn't be the first time he had killed to protect his secret, not by a very long shot, but… Methos hadn't killed a child in over two thousand years. The blood of the young on his hands were some of his worst memories of riding as a Horseman. He could do it, he didn't doubt that, but what it would do to his psyche afterwards…

"Would it be bad if they knew?" Harry asked hesitantly, his quiet voice breaking into Methos' racing thoughts.

Methos stared at him for a long moment. "Yes," he finally said, for all his millennia of experience not sure whether the answer was a mistake or not.

Harry stared right back at him, frowning and squinting and generally looking as calculating as a boy his age could manage. "I won't tell them," he finally said, slowly, "if you don't tell them I ran away from the hospital."

The Immortal nearly choked on his relief, though an equal amount of doubt kept it in check. The boy might be willing to make a deal, but children his age were notoriously bad at keeping secrets. Still, it was worth a shot. He'd just have to be ready to run at a moment's notice… "I have your oath on that?" he asked, leaning forward, and the boy nodded. "Very well. I won't tell anyone you've left your bed if you don't tell them that I… have the lightning."

Harry shook his proffered hand with a solemn light in his eyes that made Methos feel just a little bit better about not turning tail and leaving the Watchers in his dust. "I swear," the boy added, and gave the Immortal a genuine, bright smile.

Methos returned the smile with one that was only partially forced. "If you don't mind my asking," he said quietly, after a look around at the stacks to make sure they were still alone, "how did you know about the lightning?"

Harry shrugged. "I felt it. Sort of… tingly. Kind of itchy, too."

That was impossible. The boy wasn't an Immortal- there was no way he could have snuck up on Methos if that was the case- and as far as he could tell Harry wasn't a pre-Immortal, either. Not that he was always able to tell, but after five thousand years he'd learned how to be very, very good at sensing others of his kind. "Are-" he started to ask, and then stopped, frowning in consternation. How were you supposed to ask a six-year-old boy whether he was adopted? "Do you live with your parents?"

His suspicions deepened as Harry shook his head. "They died when I was really little. I don't know a lot about them. Aunt Petunia doesn't like to talk about it."

"I see…" Still frowning, Methos stretched out with his senses as far as he could towards Harry, and for a brief moment thought he caught a wisp of a Quickening around the boy, but the ghost was gone before he could be sure he wasn't imagining it. A true mystery to ponder, but… "If you don't want to be caught out here, you'd best be getting back to the hospital," he cautioned, glancing at his wristwatch. "We'll talk again some other time."

Harry nodded quickly, giving him another bright smile, and rose from his chair. "It was nice to meet you, Mr. Adam. You're a lot nicer than Uncle Vernon."

Before Methos could ask what he meant by that the boy had vanished down the aisle between the stacks, gone as quickly as he'd appeared. Shaking his head in bemusement, the Immortal promised himself that he'd find the kid again before his week in London was up. Not only did he need to reassure himself that his secret was safe, but there was no way his curiosity would let him not try to figure out the strange child.

As it turned out, though, Methos didn't see Harry again. A couple of days later, a new rumor circulated among the researchers that the boy being kept in Headquarters had been sent home to his family, and 'Adam Pierson' was ordered out of the country to follow a lead on the oldest Immortal, who might have been seen in Cordova.

-

**Ten years later.**

-

His house was spacious. His car was new. His lawn, though patched with brown in the summer heat, looked as though someone had taken a scalpel to each blade of grass and trimmed it to regulation height. There were even nicely-blooming begonias planted along his walkway, organized into bright blocks of color, and every other house in the neighborhood could boast of the same pleasant, family-oriented state.

God, but Methos hated the place. In fact, he rather thought he might burn his house down when he finally got to ditch this life.

That would only be in four or five years, though, until the Watcher's Council was a little less suspicious of the Watcher in their midst who had been killed in the line of duty, and to everyone's shock, risen again as an Immortal. A surprise even to him, so far as they knew, and Methos had every intention of keeping it that way. That meant doing everything the way a brand-new Immortal would, albeit one with Watcher training, even when doing so was often not the smartest thing for an Immortal to do.

Thus, he'd returned to a country that he'd spent time in during his 'mortal' life, leaving an admittedly slim possibility of being recognized, and whose strict laws made it difficult to carry weapons. There was a church nearby to shelter from Challenges in, but only one. And the name he'd chosen for his new identity was hardly different from his 'original' one, as Immortals in their second life, and even into their third, were often far too attached to their mortal selves. Older Immortals knew better, for the most part; the Macleod brothers he dismissed as data scatter. He had no idea how they'd gotten away with keeping their names down the centuries without getting themselves killed.

And so now, he fumbled for his keys by the front door as Mr. Wilson, two houses down, waved to young 'Adam Pierce', who had only just a few days ago moved into the long-vacant 5 Magnolia Road. Methos waved backed, reluctantly, and felt a wave of relief as he finally found the right key and made it inside the house.

As horrible as he found the outside to be, he took great pleasure in decorating the inside however he wanted to. Several boxes of musty old books had accompanied him from his previous life, and he'd wasted no time in piling them into the several bookshelves the Watcher's Council had footed the bill for installing- amazingly, they'd decided to give their former researched a pension, lasting only until they judged he'd gotten back on his feet. Tasteful prints and exotic artifacts from his travels as Adam Pierson were scattered wherever he'd had a mind to put them, and the rack of 'decorative' swords in the entryway had suspiciously sharp edges.

His neighbors had look askance at his decorations, when they'd piled in for a house-warming party he'd not had the chance to say 'no' to, up until he explained that he was an anthropology major taking a year's sabbatical from university. Then they all but fell over themselves voicing their approval of a young man following a higher education, each neighbor trying to approve more loudly than every other one. It was a great relief when Methos was at last able to shuffle them out the door, regretting that he couldn't expedite their exits much more physically.

Though admittedly, one or two had been less obnoxious than the rest. Little Mrs. Figg hadn't been too bad, even if the chocolate biscuits she brought over were stale and she was more than a bit dotty.

There was a brief message on the machine from Joe, asking how he'd settled in, and Methos powered up his computer and dashed down a quick email to the effect that a root canal was more pleasant than his new place. He was exaggerating, and Joe would know that, but there were a thousand places he'd rather be. With the email sent, he set about reviewing the anthropology material he would be expected to be up to speed in as someone who had already been through several years of classes.

The Immortals amused himself by correcting all the errors in the textbooks that he could find. The notes he jotted in the margins were, of course, not in English; he wasn't an idiot, even if he was pretending to be one. He used the same polyglot of ancient languages that he preferred to use in his journals. The textbooks couldn't entertain him forever, though, and towards the late afternoon Methos was driven outside to explore the neighborhood. There was a park not far down the street from his house, and his footsteps led him there first.

There were a few children playing desultorily on the swings and in the sandbox, watched closely by their mothers. After a brief glance Methos turned to be on his way, convinced that there was nothing interesting about the place, but then he paused as he heard the sound of pounding feet.

The park was ringed by neck-high bushes, and out of the ones on the other side of the park burst a teenage boy, running as though his life depended on it. Which it quite possibly did, the Immortal conceded as he watched five more boys, each much larger than the first, stampede through and nearly flatten the bushes a couple of seconds later.

The kid was fast, but not fast enough, and his pursuers caught up with him halfway through the park. One caught him in a rugby tackle about the knees, and he crashed to the turf with a painful-sounding thud. The others gathered around the fallen boy and seemed only be taunting him, until a portly, blonde-haired teen snapped a harsh kick into his ribs.

Methos was the kind of person who preferred to let someone else interfere with life's little troubles, but to his astonishment not one of the mothers near the playground was paying the ensuing beating any attention. They were almost pointedly looking in the other direction, even though the kid's yelps of pain were clearly audible.

The next thing he knew, he was striding towards the pack of teenagers as he damned the Highlander for his tendency to rub off on others. The Immortal silent up until the point he grabbed the nearest by the shoulders and bodily pulled him off the struggling kid. The rest staggered back, surprised by the intrusion of an adult into their activities.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" the blonde one blustered, taking the words right out of Methos' mouth.

Methos narrowed his eyes. "That rather depends. On you, mostly, and on how much you manage to piss me off in the next few minutes. Right now I'm leaning towards calling the police on you twerps, but if annoy me enough I'll take care of things myself."

Despite not having reached his full growth, the blonde massed nearly as much as Methos himself did, but he didn't have millennia-worth experience in intimidation. The teenager fell back a step and then caught himself, aware of the eyes of fellows on him. "You wouldn't dare! My father would-"

"Daddy's got connections, does he?" the Immortal interrupted, sparing a glance for the first time at the target of their wrath. The kid was skinny and wore baggy clothes and thick glasses; he looked so much like a victim that Methos wasn't at all surprised he'd been chosen as the boys' punching bag. Then two things struck the Immortal, almost simultaneously. The hopelessness in his eyes, despite being rescued, and their deep green color behind the glasses that struck a chord within him.

Why did those eyes look so familiar?

"So do I," he continued, so quickly that none of the others realized he'd been even momentarily distracted. "And I'm willing to bet they're a lot better than your father's. Care to try me?"

Okay, so for the most part they were really the Council's contacts, not his, but there was no need to quibble over details. The boy was silent, fuming, and after a moment Methos nodded in satisfaction. "Or you could take the last option. Get out of here, now, and if I ever see you pull this kind of crap again I promise that you'll regret it."

The blonde postured for a bit longer and then took off, his pack following obediently along at his heels. Methos leaned down to help the kid up, who visibly hesitated before accepting his hand.

"…Thanks," he said, wariness as well as pain evident in every line of his body. "They'll just do it again tomorrow, though."

"Then why don't you tell your parents?" Damned if he knew how, but Methos could swear he knew this kid from somewhere. The memory was nudging the back of his minds, but whenever he tried to lay hands on it, it scuttled back out of reach.

The kid snorted bitterly. "Kind of hard to tell dead people anything. And considering Dudley's my cousin, there's no point in complaining about him to my aunt and uncle."

That got a wince of sympathy out of him, but Methos had done his good deed for the day and was ready to wash his hands of the business unless it showed up on his doorstep. "I'm Adam Pierce," he introduced himself, putting a bit of distance in his voice. He wasn't going to be anyone's savior.

"Harry Potter," the kid said, and the memory fell into place with a jarring _thud_.

Well, damn. It was _him_.

-

(Sirius is dead, Harry knows the Prophecy. Methos knows about magic, but when the wizarding world went into hiding around 900 A.D. he came to believe they'd died out. Insert the myriad adventures of Harry and Methos, in which Methos tries his best to hide his secrets, but Harry's very good at ferreting things out. Methos is eventually outed to both Harry and the Watcher's Council.)

-

Joe Dawson looked up with a bemused smile as Methos settled down onto the barstool. The old man had been making himself scarce lately, and the Watcher hadn't had an idea why until he received a telephone call earlier from one of contacts.

"So what's this I hear about you blackmailing the Watcher's Council?" he demanded.

The Immortal gave him a hurt look. "What, no hello? No 'how are you'? And here I thought you liked me."

"Oh, he loves you," a third voice said sarcastically, and Duncan Macleod propped himself again the bar next to him. Methos didn't jump; he'd been aware ever since he stepped inside the bar that the Highlander was visiting Joe. "Blackmail? Is there something I should know about?"

"Only if you're going to pull on a top hat and carry a cane and call yourself Jiminy," Methos answered, hiding his irritation with his own dose of sarcasm. Why did Macleod always insist on acting as his conscience?

Recognizing the start of another argument between the two ersatz friends, Joe intervened. "Adam's given the Tribune an ultimatum. They assign a Watcher of his choice to tail him, or he falls off their radar entirely. He's been playing hooky the last few weeks so they'd believe him."

"That… sounds reasonable," Mac conceded. Ever since the secret of Methos' identity had come out, the Watchers had been almost obsessive over the old man. He knew Methos was getting fed up with it, and he could understand wanting to have some control over just who was privy to all of your secrets.

Besides, if Methos got this sop now, maybe he wouldn't find it necessary to disappear again. As exasperated as he tended to get with the ancient Immortal, Mac much preferred having him in his life.

Joe nodded. "That's not what has the Tribune all wound up. The Watcher the old reprobate," he gestured to Methos, who was sitting there with a smug look on his face as he listened, "has picked out isn't even through the Academy yet. He has two more months before he graduates."

An eyebrow crept up, and the Scot turned a suspicious stare on his friend, who more than ever looked like the cat who ate the canary. "I know that look. He's up to something."

Methos shrugged expansively. "What can I say? He's more than ready. I think I can count on him to be able to keep up with me and… keep me out of trouble."

The suspicion wasn't only coming from Mac now. "I take it you know this Potter kid, then? He's not just a name on a list?" Joe pondered out loud.

"Oh, we've met, once or twice… I recommended him to the Academy. Thought he'd do well there." It was a Cheshire grin now, full of secrets and spice, and Mac automatically met it with a scowl.

He was suddenly very interested in meeting Potter.

* * *

A/N: And… that's it, folks. Damn, just shy of 5000 words. I wanted to hit that landmark… Anyway, these were the only scenes from this bunny that suggested themselves in depth, so I wrote them out. No more will be forthcoming unless (or until) an actual plot suggests itself, so I really do hope someone out there fell into the bunny-trap. I've always loved Highlander crossovers starring Methos, and just was really, truly tired of stories where Methos spilled his secrets at the drop of a hat.

* * *

31 July 2007


	2. Saving Yesterday HP

**Working Title:** Back Again  
_(Feel free to suggest other titles, folks)  
_**Crossover:** None  
**Warnings:** Slight language, non-explicit violence.  
**Pairings:** Non-explicit slash.  
**Summary:** Time-travel to his past self? Check. Plans to save the future? Check. But... is there any way to save Harry Potter, too?  
**Disclaimer:** I own nothing pertaining directly to the world of Harry Potter.

* * *

The Light was beyond desperate. Desperate meant willing to do whatever necessary to pull off a last-minute save, to win the day against the odds, to sacrifice themselves to assure victory. They had been desperate, before. Then they attempted their last, great hope… and failed.

Now they remembered mere desperation with a kind of longing nostalgia. There were no more last, great hopes. Only last, middling, barely-there hopes that they'd have given anything never to have even considered. Like this one.

The ritual had to be done starkers, of course. Didn't they all? He shivered as cool drafts of air brushed against his skin, freezing each inch of him except where the mounds of scar tissue had destroyed all the nerves. Around him the last few members of their little resistance chanted and swayed, not to keep time, but because to a one they were too exhausted to keep themselves standing straight.

The air thickened and chilled further, until the wizard could have sworn he was standing neck-deep in ice water rather than on dry land. The end of the ritual was approaching, as the chanting crescendoed, and the flames of the candles flickered and bent…

It was like being torn apart and put back together, a thousand times a second and for what must have been every second of every minute of every hour of the time he was being forced back through. He wanted to scream, but he had no lips, no tongue, no lungs, no _air_…

Then it ended; without warning he was gasping in the air he had been too long without. Now he understood why the musty old book they had found the ritual in had warned against trying to go back too far… it wouldn't do much good to send someone back to change things, only to have them arrive dead of asphyxiation.

At least he knew he'd arrived in the right place. Even without moving his head he could recognize the familiar, though long-unseen confines of his room; and he didn't want to move, because after all the places he'd been forced to sleep without the benefit of cushioning charms (lest they be tracked), even the lumpy bed beneath him was softer than all the clouds in heaven.

They'd succeeded. He was back in the past! Still staring up at the ceiling of his room, in the house that had been burned to the ground, he lifted a hand and ran it over his torso. It was amazing, how he encountered no scars along the way, no sign of the dozens of curses he'd managed to dodge only just quickly enough that they didn't quite kill him. He'd gotten good at dodging curses. Good enough to be one of the few left standing, at the end of it all. Good enough that he lived to see all the others die… her bushy brown burning in the pyre, the pain in his eyes as he screamed until his great heart burst…

The wizard shuddered, clenching a fist of the hand-me-down shirt over his heart. No, he wouldn't think about that. It wouldn't happen again. Never again. He'd die first, if he had to. He refused to save the world, if it meant he'd have to lose his best friend and the boy he loved with all his soul a second time. There was no future without them in it.

But if he was going to keep them alive, he'd have to plan carefully. He didn't dare make a mistake, or-

"For goodness' sake, child! How you can stand to live in this mess, I'll never know." The witch strode into the room, reaching beneath his stunned form to smooth out his blankets from their rumpled state. "Really, I know you're heading off to Hogwarts tomorrow, but how difficult would it be to just keep everything… dear? What's wrong?"

Through his tears Ronald Weasley smiled up at his mother, whom he had last seen fall screaming under the claws of a Dark werewolf. "Nothing, Mum. Everything's wonderful."

And he swore on the deaths of all those he'd loved that he would make sure it stayed that way. Starting tomorrow, on the train to his first year at Hogwarts.

…Oh, bloody hell, he'd be meeting Harry for the first time all over again…

* * *

A/N: This is the prologue for a story that I do intend to write, but since it isn't a high priority and I wanted to get a few first reactions, I'm tossing it in the Pen for now. Yes, in the future it was Ron/Harry. I hadn't intended for it to be, but it wrote itself in and if I'm rewriting the time-travel cliché, I might as well throw in the future relationship one, too.

In regards to canon, disregard anything from HBP or DH unless I specifically write it in. Mostly because I need to read the bloody books first… I keep meaning to, but I also don't want to read them…

21 October 2007


	3. Malediction HP&SG1

_**Malediction**_

(Harry Potter/Stargate: SG-1)

_Warnings: _Mentions of violence, mild profanity.  
_Disclaimer_: I own nothing pertaining to either Harry Potter nor Stargate.

* * *

The Auror slowly rose to his feet, shaken. His opponent lay still, crumpled in a boneless heap, but he'd seen them go down before, seemingly for good, only to rise again a moment later and take out the unwary ones who had managed the feat. His wand at the ready, he limped closer, nudging his fallen foe with a cringing toe.

The nudge prompted a shudder in reaction, and he nearly let loose with the lethal spell on the tip of his tongue, but there was no further movement save the rising and falling chest. With a sigh of heartfelt relief, the wizard twitched his wand and iron chains wrapped around the silent body, binding legs together and arms tight against the torso.

After a moment's thought, he cast the spell again, and a second layer of chains appeared. With this one, there was no such thing as being too careful.

The Auror dug a small mirror from inside his combat robes and breathed on its surface. "Moody reporting," he said, trying to ignore the tremor in his voice. "I've got her. Get the Unspeakables here, fast. We've got to get that damn thing out of her before it decides to wake up again." The adrenaline rush that had been the only thing to keep him alive for the last ten minutes finally ran out, and his knees gave out on him, sending him to the floor. Too close to his prisoner for comfort, he dragged himself over to the nearest wall and propped himself against it, trying to ignore the waves of pain he could now feel coming from what was left of his foot. "Damn you, girl, you'd better still be in there or your husband will kill me… once they catch him, too…"

Exhausted and hazy from the pain, he stared at his protégé's wife. Her crimson hair was spread in a curtain around her head, too much like a pool of blood for his liking, but there was no way he was getting close enough to change that fact. Her eyes stayed closed, which he was grateful for- that glow, and that echoing voice… nothing he'd ever seen before had scared him half so much as those.

There was a series of loud cracks, and the group of arriving wizards split in two, half moving to surround the fallen witch and half to Moody. "Merlin, you've really done it to yourself this time, haven't you?" the mediwitch sighed, casting a stasis charm over the lower half of his leg. "That might have to come off…"

Moody ignored her. "Auror Potter?" he demanded, grabbing her by the arm. "The team that went after him, did they…?"

She flinched, pulling her arm free with a jerk. "There… there were casualties, but… they've got him too. The Unspeakables are already working on him. Now lay still, I'm going to evacuate you to St. Mungo's."

Moody's last sight, as the Portkey spun him away, was of the wary Unspeakables adding several more layers to Lily Potter's chain-wrapped body. Muzzily, he reflected that it was a very good thing the snake-like monster using her body hadn't woken up…

-  
_Nine months later_  
-

The mediwitch mopped her forehead with a damp towel, and then rinsed it and did the same for the panting woman on the bed. Damn her if it hadn't been hard going, one of the toughest births she'd ever presided over. At least Mrs. Potter and her boy were all right, even if both were exhausted, the babe too tired to even cry.

"There's a love, now for the weighing charm," her assistant crooned to the newborn in her arms. "Look at that, isn't he gorgeous? I could swear he's already tryin' to look at me."

Mrs. Potter stirred, and the mediwitch hastened to put a calming hand on her shoulder. "My baby," she murmured, opening those delightful green eyes.

"Just a moment, dear." With a gentle pat, she moved off to take the babe from her assistant's arms. "Go fetch Mr. Potter, why don't you? He'll need to be present for the naming."

The girl nodded and dashed off; a good girl, really, but just out of Hogwarts and still a tad excitable. She'd steady down as she got older. Though, the mediwitch reflected as James Potter came dashing in, getting older didn't seem to be helping with certain people.

"Here you go, dear," she said, holding out the infant for his mother to take. Once the adorable little thing was out of her arms, she turned away towards where the quill and birth certificate waited, not noticing the way the new mother had stiffened as soon as she made contact with her son. "What will you be naming the wee one, now?"

Lily stared down into the luminous green eyes, so much like hers, in the scrunched-up red face. She could feel it, that itch beneath her skin that denoted the presence of the substance that the goddess who had taken her over had taught her was called naquadah. Oh Merlin, but that meant… "Harcesis," she whispered, jerking her head up to stare at her husband, who looked just as horrified as she felt. The child forbidden by the gods, feared by the gods…

"Harcesis," the mediwitch repeated, jotting it down on the certificate. "Well, that's one I've never heard before, but it's quite lovely."

The dismayed looks the Potters sent her would have been comical under any other circumstances. They hadn't meant… his name was going to be Charles, after her grandfather, for goodness's sake! But it was already on the birth certificate, and couldn't be altered…

"Any middle names, sir, madam?" the mediwitch asked, bringing their attention back to the strangely quiet babe in Lily's arms.

"James only," Lily replied, feeling sick to her stomach. That much at least could go according to plan.

James moved to her side and perched on the edge of the bed. The arm he put around her shoulders made her feel a little better, but not nearly so much as she'd have preferred. "He… he doesn't look… like I'd have thought he would," he said quietly, too quietly for their companions to hear.

_Like a monster_, he didn't say, but she heard it all the same. "No, he doesn't," she agreed. He looked just like a normal little baby, all wrinkled and red and so very small… maybe he was normal, after all. The itchy feeling was already fading.

"Hey! Out of the way there, godfather coming through!" they heard a voice call out, and looked up just in time to see Sirius push his way into the room. A grin split his face as he saw the bundle in Lily's arms. "Well? Aren't you going to let little whatsisname meet his godfather?" The hyperactive Auror leaned over the mediwitch's shoulder to see the birth certificate. "Harcesis? Circe, James, what did you go and name him a mouthful like that for? As bad as the names my folks pick out, really."

James and Lily traded yet another glance, uncertain of what do say, and before they'd realized it Sirius had plucked the baby away from his mother and was peering at him closely. "Doesn't look much like a Harcesis… I think I'll call him Harry."

"Harry…" James repeated slowly. "…Yes. His name is Harry." Lily nodded, feeling oddly relieved.

Surely the Bane of the Gods wouldn't have so common a name as _Harry_?

* * *

A/N: We, ah, were making cookies. Cookies with icing. I got to eat what was left of the icing, so pure sugar on an empty stomach. I felt like writing but I knew better than to go anywhere near my current stories, so I thought I'd try out an old bunny. This is the prologue to one I intend to continue, someday, but someday is looking far away unless this gets a good enough response.

On another note, quite a few of you have found the poll on my bio. The way it works is this: I will do my utmost best to work on the next chapters of the three (currently) winning stories. Once a chapter of a story is posted, it will be removed from the polling choices, and then placed back in once another story has been updated. That way I hope to keep a rolling feedback going. Currently winning are The Boy and the Ring, Storm Child, and Strains of Melody, which ironically enough are the three stories I already had the most written on: 1,131, 242 and 340 words, respectively. However, I'm also rewriting the first few chapters of Storm Child.

* * *

3 December 2007


	4. Magpie HP

**_Magpie_**

(Harry Potter, AU of first year)

_Warnings: _Slightly gory violence.

_Disclaimer: _I own nothing pertaining to the world of Harry Potter.

* * *

Severus burst through the door, a full step behind Albus despite the Headmaster's greater age. Then he had to throw on the brakes to keep from running into his mentor's suddenly stalled back, and together they gaped at the scene before them.

Potter stood over Quirrell's prone body, watching with what almost seemed to be amusement as the professor they had come to save him from sobbed in pain. His blistered face and hands gave them the reasons why, if not the how. As the two wizards entered the room, the boy glanced up and smirked at their surprise at the sight. His green eyes flashed with laughter as he reached into his robes.

"Good evening, Professors," he said quietly. "I'm sorry to drag you here this late, but I needed witnesses."

"Potter? What in the bloody blazes are you blathering on about?" the potions master demanded incredulously. "Witnesses for _what_?"

The smirk widened. "This." The hand withdrew from the midnight robes, holding something that only Severus remembered from his childhood: the smooth, sleek deadliness of a Muggle gun. His jaw dropped, while Albus simply stared uncomprehendingly as the Gryffindor took a step closer to Quirrell, and with brutal efficiency fired two shots into the man's head.

Albus flinched back, as much from the loud report of the gun as from the bloody brain matter splattering the ground near his feet. "Harry, what, what…?" he demanded haltingly, shocked to his core.

"What do I think I'm doing?" Potter finished, chuckling. "Why, what I came here to do." He pulled a small, glittering object from his pocket. "Now that I have what I wanted, there's no further need to hang around here." He walked briskly to the center of the room, near where the Mirror of Erised stood, forgotten.

Both wizards were too stunned to do anything but watch as the Boy-Who-Lived vanished with the Sorcerer's Stone in a brief shower of crimson sparks.

* * *

A/N: This is mostly a 'hey, I'm not dead!' post. Not a single one of my professors this semester believes in multiple-choice tests, so my time spent studying has tripled. Between that and work... Anyway, this little snippet has been around literally for years (it was inspired when Shade Dancer, then Nicoletta, posted the Stone scene in her story _Blood Prince_), and never went anywhere because of all the directions it could be taken. Evil!Harry, Harry in an international crime ring dedicated to gems/jewelry, etc.

Spring break is next week, and I'll be flying cross-country to D.C. to visit said Shade Dancer. Nothing will be posted during that time, but she's my sounding board, so hopefully by the time I get back I'll either have a chapter ready, or have lots of shiny bunnies to drop into the Pen.

7 March 2008


	5. Crunchy, With Ketchup HP&Temeraire

_**Crunchy, With Ketchup  
**_(Harry Potter/loosely based on Naomi Novik's _Temeraire_ series)  
_Warnings: _None.  
_Disclaimer_: I own nothing pertaining to either the Harry Potter or the Temeraire franchises. I especially don't own any direct quotes from _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_.

* * *

_Prologue_

* * *

"Hermione, the exams are ages away."

"Ten weeks," Hermione snapped, dropping her armload of books onto the table in front of the boys' sofa. "That's not ages, that's like a second to Nicolas Flamel."

Ron made a low sound of frustration, deep in his throat as he eyed the daunting pile of literature. "But we're not six hundred years old. Anyway, what are you studying for, you already know it all."

For a moment Hermione seem to swell up almost like a balloon. "What am I studying for? Are you crazy? You realize we need to pass these exams to get into the second year? They're very important, I should have started studying a month ago, I don't know what's gotten into me…"

Harry sighed and leaned back into the corner of the sofa as his best friends' conversation devolved back into the argument they'd had at least twice a day for the past week. He liked Hermione, he really did (well, mostly), but she could be a bit… bossy. And driven. And, sometimes, concerned with entirely the wrong things. It might not be so bad, if Harry could stand up to her the way Ron did- even if Ron only stood up to her because he was too lazy to work as hard as the witch wanted him to- but faced with Hermione's determination to help him improve, Harry just always seemed to buckle.

And it wasn't like Harry wouldn't study on his own, whatever Hermione seemed to think. Dudley didn't attend Hogwarts, wouldn't in a million years, so there was no reason for Harry to do poorly and every reason for him to work at passing. He wouldn't put it past the Dursleys to pull him out of Hogwarts if he failed a year. The Headmaster might even let them, after catching Harry out after curfew that night in front of the Mirror. Harry still wasn't sure why the old wizard had let him go, but it probably still counted against him in Dumbledore's slightly senile mind.

With another sigh, he reached for one of the musty books as Ron and Hermione's argument hit its swing. Harry flipped the book open to a random page and started to read. _'-for, while the Restriction Curse is only temporary, wearing off after twenty to thirty minutes, the Body-Bind Curse lasts until removed from the person it is cast upon, as well as allowing very slow, careful movements instead of complete paralysis. The difference between the two curses, of course, lies in the horizontal swish prior to-' _

Huffing in annoyance, with a few added grumbles, Ron finally gave in and reached for a book of his own. Hermione sat primly in a nearby armchair with a stack of even more books on her lap, one book open and propped against the arm of the chair so she could reference it while reading the one in her hands. For several long minutes there was not a sound in the common room beyond the turning of the pages and the quiet murmuring of other Gryffindors in the background, a few even doing some studying of their own.

That state of affairs managed to last all of fifteen minutes, before Ron dropped his book and again started to argue with Hermione. Loudly.

Harry sighed for the third time that evening, lowering his own textbook. He wanted to study, but like this? It just wasn't going to happen, not with both of his friends studying with him. And if he tried to study with just one, wouldn't that make the other unhappy? Harry didn't have a lot of experience with friends, hardly more than half a year, but he thought Ron might be put out if Harry started avoiding him in favor of spending time with Hermione, and Hermione would feel left out if he hung out with Ron.

He liked having friends, but they could be a lot of trouble sometimes. Harry rather thought the only way he'd get any studying done would be if he did his best to avoid both of them…

* * *

Harry'd originally thought that managing to slip away from both of his best friends would be difficult, likely involving much use of his father's invisibility cloak, but it turned out that all he had to do was to wait until all their attention was on each other (as it invariably was during their frequent arguments) and darting away and out of sight was a breeze. Not that he didn't still carry the cloak, just in case. Hermione was the smartest person Harry knew, and Ron was the best at chess, so he figured it was really only a matter of time before they realized Harry was sort-of avoiding them. He just hoped they knew it wasn't because he didn't want to be around them, just that he needed space.

Finding a good place to study in was much harder than getting away on his own, even during Easter break when Hogwarts was half-deserted. The obvious choice, the library, had been fine for a couple of days- Harry tucked himself away in a corner and got in a good hour or two of studying each time, but then fifth and seventh years, fretting about their coming O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, invaded. Some of the older students were already so frazzled, even this early, that looking at them made Harry cringe. And once, in his cringing, knock several books off his table. The glares he'd gotten from said frazzled upperclassmen as the echoes faded were enough to make the young wizard flee the library in search of safer studying havens.

Harry's next choice in study areas was in the abandoned, somewhat dusty classroom that had held the Mirror of Erised. He felt a pang of loss again when he glanced at the spot where the Mirror had been, but quickly pushed it aside to settle down on the floor (as the room lacked convenient chairs and desks) with his books around him. For several minutes he was able to study in peace, only for half of the torches lighting the room to be suddenly snuffed out in a single instant.

The boy's head jerked up, searching for the source of the disturbance. "Peeves?" he called out. "That's enough. Come out, this isn't funny."

Silence and stillness were the only replies he received. Wary for reasons that he couldn't really understand, Harry knelt and began to gather his things back into his book bag. He'd only just stood back up when there was a rustling and a chittering noise directly behind him, and he spun around, his wand clenched in his hand.

There was nothing there. Nothing but shadows.

Needless to say, that was another potential study spot that Harry abandoned.

Twice more Harry sought a quiet, safe haven within Hogwarts proper. His brief attempt at assaying the dungeons was aborted by the sight of Snape striding down the corridor in his direction, the limp gone from the professor's gait. Fortunately for his house's points, and maybe his life if Harry's suspicions about Snape were correct, Harry had had the foresight too wear his special cloak before venturing anywhere near Slytherin territory.

Next came the Astronomy Tower, which Harry enjoyed spending time in during their midnight classes. It wasn't so much that he was particularly interested in the stars, just that it was the highest he'd ever been without being on a broom, and he loved the way the night breezes circled about and ran through his fingers when he held out his hands. Well, he enjoyed the breezes when it wasn't utterly freezing out, anyway. When it was, all he could do was huddle in his robes and cloak and hope Professor Sinistra remembered to cast warming charms on the class before she started lecturing.

There were classes on top of the Tower after dark, but Harry hadn't thought there would be anyone there during the day. He was wrong. He was so very wrong. And he didn't think he'd ever be able to look at two sixth-year Ravenclaws the same way again.

And so it was that two days later Hagrid found the eleven-year-old sitting cross-legged under a non-whomping willow that overhung the lake. Harry had a textbook open on his lap and was scribbling notes in the margins, doing his best to ignore the occasional delicate snowflake that brushed his cheek or came to rest in his unruly hair.

"Harry, lad, what're yeh doin' out here? Yeh'll freeze like that!" Hagrid called out, striding in his direction.

Harry blinked up at the enormous man, startled. He hadn't even seen him approaching… "Just… studying, Hagrid."

Hagrid frowned, his beady black eyes concerned. "On yer own? An' all the way out 'ere?"

The boy flushed. "Er, yeah. It was just… really loud, trying to study in the castle. I couldn't really concentrate."

The groundskeeper regarded him steadily for a moment, and Harry had the oddest feeling that Hagrid knew what he really meant, that Harry just needed to get away for a while. Then Hagrid knelt, bringing him to merely the height of a normal man, and held out a hand towards the first year. "On with yeh, then. Don' feel right, leavin' yeh out here on yer own, so why don't yeh come study at me house? Got a nice big fire an' a cup o' tea with yer name on it."

Shivering, Harry didn't even need to think about it. He took Hagrid's hand and let himself be helped up.

* * *

Thereafter, whenever the stress of classes, his arguing friends and the continuing mystery behind the Philosopher's Stone, and whether Professor Snape was _really_ trying to kill him, got to him, Harry found his escape to be Hagrid's hut, with a book in front of him and a cup of too-strong tea at his elbow. Hagrid never minded him showing up, even unannounced, only cautioning Harry not to touch anything whenever the big man had to leave to attend to his groundskeeper duties. As April wore on, ever closer to the year's finals, Harry even found himself there every other day or so.

Then came the day that Harry noticed an egg cloistered in a metal pail in the lit fireplace.

"Hagrid? What's that?" Harry asked over his shoulder, leaning in to peer more closely through the flames at the egg.

There was a sudden clatter behind him, as Hagrid dropped the teakettle he'd been about to fill. "Ah, that," he stammered, safely retrieving the kettle and then wiping his hands on the full-sized towel that served him as a dishrag. "It's, ah, jus' summat I won from a feller down at the pub last night, yeh don' need to be worryin' abou' it."

"Really? What kind of egg is it?" Harry asked, wracking his brain for any kind of creature he'd learned about yet- not many to begin with- that laid eggs that big and wouldn't be harmed by fire. Unless Harry was just cooking it for dinner, but that didn't seem very like Hagrid…

The boy heard some more stammering come from the groundskeeper, and finally clued into the fact that Hagrid might not have wanted him to know about the egg at all. "Er, I mean, you don't really have to tell me, I was just curious…" he hurried to add, meeting Hagrid's eyes with all the earnestness and apology he could muster.

If anything, that seemed to discomfit Hagrid even further. "Nah, lad, it's jus'… well… promise me yeh won't mention it to anyone else, now?"

Harry nodded so hard and fast that he thought his head might come off. Ron might have been Harry's first friend his age, but Hagrid was his first friend ever, even on top of what Harry owed him for helping him so much these last few weeks.

Hagrid glanced out the window and then joined the boy in front of the fireplace. "Yeh see, this here be a dragon's egg," he whispered hoarsely, taking up a poker and thrusting it into the sand that cushioned the egg.

Harry smiled. "You told me you'd always wanted a dragon, just before we went to Diagon Alley," he remembered.

The shaggy head nodded up and down. "Aye, and this one's goin' ter be a beauty. See that deep black color o' the shell? Kinda swirly when you look close at it? He's a Norwegian Ridgeback, from up in the mountains. I can't wait ter see him hatch."

"Me neither," Harry agreed softly. Imagine, a real dragon! Here at Hogwarts!

Hagrid sighed gustily. "Normally, the nest mother'd be takin' care o' keeping the egg warm by breathin' on it every now an' then, but the best I can do is ter keep it in the fire, an' then you have to poke it to keep the airflow goin'. An' with me bein' out o' the house so much…"

"Can I help?" Harry offered after a moment's consideration. "Since I'm already here so much, I mean. At least with keeping it warm…"

Hagrid beamed.

* * *

Tending to the egg wasn't all that difficult. Whenever Harry was there studying, and Hagrid had to go out, Hagrid set up a little egg timer- charmed, of course- to go off every half hour, so Harry could get up from the table and poke through the sand around the egg. It got a bit quiet during those times, so Harry found himself reading passages from his books out loud, everything from chapters upon chapters of Goblin Rebellions (to his surprise, they were much more interesting when read out loud) to basic Potions recipes. It wasn't hard to imagine the egg as someone else to talk to, either, so Harry began directing his monologues towards it, as though it could listen to him. He even told it all about his friends, the Philosopher's Stone, and even a little bit about living with the Dursleys. The venting did make him feel better.

Nearly a week after the egg first arrived, Hagrid came back to the hut looking worried. "Them friends o' yours caught me in the library lookin' up dragons," he admitted to Harry. "They'll probably be down here around teatime."

Harry started guiltily. He knew he hadn't been hanging about with Ron and Hermione as he probably should have been, but the time spent with Hagrid, or in his hut, was so much less demanding… At least, whenever Harry'd caught up with them before and they asked where he'd gone, telling them that he'd been studying assuaged Hermione's feelings, even if Ron always looked a bit put out.

And what if they saw the egg? Harry wasn't quite sure why, beyond a few suspicions, but Hagrid was keen on no one else finding out about it. They would have to handle this carefully…

When Ron and Hermione knocked on the door, Harry had just finished laying out plates and cups around the little table. They looked surprised to see him, and Hermione immediately bustled over. "There you are! We were looking everywhere for you! Have you been here this entire time?"

Harry offered them a wincing smile and took the chair closest to the door, leaving the chairs with their backs to the fire to them. It was perhaps a bit cruel, given how warm the constant fire left the hut, but it was the only way he could think of to keep them from just randomly glancing around and spotting the suspicious pail in the fireplace. Harry had spread a thick layer of sand over the top, one he'd have to remove soon to keep the egg "breathing" properly, but he didn't trust that to keep the egg from detection.

"Aye, Harry's been kind enough ter keep me company," Hagrid agreed, filling their teacups and offering around a plate of stoat sandwiches. Harry was the only person to take one. Hagrid's sandwiches weren't actually all that bad, so long as you didn't think about what went into them.

"Oh…" Hermione said quietly, sipping at her tea to cover her momentary disquiet. Her nose wrinkled instead as she remembered why she usually just pretended to sip Hagrid's tea, instead of actually did. There was just something wrong with a drink that left you even thirstier than you had been.

"Hagrid, why were you looking up dragons?" Ron asked bluntly, inching his chair a bit further from the fire.

Hagrid fumbled the teakettle, but didn't drop it this time. Harry was grateful, since he was the one Hagrid was currently looming over. "W-well, I was jus' thinkin', after Fluffy…"

You could actually see the other two first years sit up higher in their seats. "You mean, there's a _dragon_ guarding the Stone, too?" Ron asked, his eyes gleaming.

"No!" Hagrid exclaimed, appalled. "Dumbledore would never let a dragon inter the school! There wouldn' be room!"

Ron looked a bit disappointed, but Harry's interest had now been stirred. "Then what else is guarding the Stone?" he asked, sipping at his tea. He really did want to know, and at least talking about the Stone's protections instead would keep the others from asking further about dragons.

Hagrid snorted, settling himself against the counter. "Even if I knew, I wouldn' be tellin' yeh. Yeh know too much already for my peace o' mind. The Stone's safe, leave it ter the professors to protect it."

Hermione smiled at the groundskeeper. "Oh, Hagrid, of course you know. You know everything that goes on around here."

There was a hint of blush through Hagrid's shaggy beard. "Oh, I wouldn' say that. But… I guess it wouldna hurt to say that every teacher added somethin' to guard it, and Fluffy were mine. Professor Sprout, Professor Flitwick, Professor McGongall, Professor Snape… an' I think Professor Dumbledore himself added somethin' special."

All three students were horrifed. "Snape?" Ron demanded. "Snape's one of the ones guarding the Stone?"

Hagrid frowned at him. "That's Professor Snape ter yeh, Ron."

"But he's the one trying to steal it!"

"Oh, fer… yer not still on about that, are yeh? Look, the Stone's safer than safe can be. All of yeh need to stop worryin' about it, or yeh'll never pass yer exams, yeh hear?"

At that reminder Hermione seemed to recall all of her old worries, and after a brief, polite bit of conversation rose from her seat. "We should be off, then, and get some more studying done. I know Ron's been falling behind, and I should see where you are too, Harry."

Harry only just resisted the urge to roll his eyes, waving to Hagrid as he followed his friends out of the hut. He'd have liked to stay longer, but he couldn't think of a way to wait behind without raising suspicions.

Overall, though, he had to consider the evening a success. Neither of them had so much as glanced into the fire.

* * *

It wasn't two days later that Hagrid sent him a note by owl. The note consisted of only two words: _It's hatching_.

Classes couldn't end fast enough that day. Harry trailed along behind Ron and Hermione as they left the classroom, and then let himself be swept away by the crowd of students while they weren't watching. It wasn't at all difficult to lose himself in the crowd, given that most of them were a full head taller than he was. Once free, he rushed out the Entrance Hall and down the steps, praying that he wasn't already too late.

But no, the egg was still resting on the cleared table and rocking every now and then when he got there, scorching the wood beneath it. There was just enough time for Hagrid to set Harry up with a cup of tea before the rocking took on a new urgency; the glow of the fire reflected off of the dark egg in a dance of whorls and dashes of light, until finally, at last, cracks began to appear.

Harry had rather expected that to be the end of it, really. He'd never watched anything hatch before, and he had the sort of idea in his head that the egg cracked, and then with much fanfare would split open and disgorge a perfect baby… whatever had laid the egg in the first place. Instead, the almost delicate black tip of a snout poked its way through a weak spot and started slowly pushing its way out. It took the baby dragon a while; Harry would have liked to have helped, but a glance at Hagrid got him a headshake in response.

"He needs teh to do it on his own," the groundskeeper rumbled. The dragon paused briefly in its labors to peer curiously at him.

Finally, enough of the onyx eggshell chipped away that the dragon was able to totter out onto the tabletop, its bronze claws scraping at the rough-hewn wood. Two little bronze buds above its eyes that Harry knew would, in a few months, be elegant, forward-facing horns, glittered in the firelight. The rest of the dragon was a deep, light-consuming black, currently a bit damp from its hatching.

In that instant, a lifelong dragon-enthusiast was born.

"Oh, Hagrid, he's beautiful," Harry breathed. He looked rather silly, sitting there open-mouthed in awe. A bit like a dope, really.

But that expression was nothing compared to the one that quickly appeared next, after the baby dragon spun at the sound of his voice, tripping over its own feet to plant its chin into the table. Harry automatically reached out to help it back up, an instinct that under any other circumstances would have probably left him less a limb or two. This time, though…

The dragon stared up at him with wide, golden eyes, and with a voice that sounded a bit like a growl mixed with squeaky hinges, asked: "Harry-wizard?"

* * *

A/N: As stated, this is the prologue to a potential story based loosely on Naomi Novik's _Temeraire_ series, which is an AU of the Napoleonic Wars using the basis of most countries having intelligent dragons, flown by their captains, as their air forces. Dragons learn things easiest and most quickly either while in the shell or shortly after hatching, especially things like languages. In the HP world, I expect dragon eggs don't often have someone speaking to them as equals- even if a dragon happened to learn English, they wouldn't want to speak with their captors. Dragons in Temeraire's world (Temeraire is the main dragon) bond with a human at their hatching, should an acceptable human be present. It's rather like Anne McCaffrey's _Pern_ books in that, except that it's less of a mystical bond, and more of a duckling imprinting on its mother.

In other notes, I got smacked in the face with a bunch of new bunnies. Attempts to get back to my regularly scheduled bunnies are continuing.

* * *

18 August 2008


	6. Patrimony HP&GW

_**Patrimony**_

(Harry Potter/Gundam Wing)

_Warnings:_ Utterly mild profanity. Rushed writing. Manipulated timelines.

_Disclaimer:_ I own nothing pertaining to either Harry Potter or Gundam Wing.

* * *

"The computers turned up a hit."

The words echoed through the office, with a heavy, solid weight to their sound, until they faded away to nothing. Except in his head, where they echoed for a while longer, not being words he had ever expected to hear in regards to himself. Not even when the five of them had been informed that their highly classified personal information had been leaked into the system by a now-imprisoned doctor. One of the others, maybe, he could see that. They deserved family, could adjust to having one with the minimum of fuss. Winner wouldn't even have to adjust at all. But a hit, for him?

"For me," Heero said flatly. It wasn't a question; such would have been pointless and illogical when he'd been the only one called to the commander's office. Nevertheless, he couldn't quite believe it.

"Yes," Lady Une confirmed. She folded her hands on her desk and pursed her lips as she watched her best agent's face. Heero absently noted and filed away her apprehensive, almost unhappy posture. She was worried about his reaction. "The DNA showed a fifty percent match to your own. Your father is alive."

A father. A parent. An authority figure meant to watch over him and guide him to adulthood. The closest things Heero had ever had to that had been Odin Lowe, who raised him to be an assassin, and Dr. J, who had turned him into something even worse.

"Did he want me?" The question was out before he could censor it. He hadn't meant to ask, and refused to admit that he cared about the answer, but there was still a damnable note of uncertainty that rang all too clear. Just because he had no idea where Lowe had picked him up, whether he'd been abandoned or not, was no reason to lose his confidence. Heero had been an assassin, a soldier, and then a Gundam pilot.

He was _not_ a child in need of a father. He refused to be.

Lady Une's expression softened ever so slightly. "Yes. I don't have a doubt about that." Heero's surprise was poorly-hidden, and she promptly slid a folder across the desk. "He's a British national. A lord, in fact, a holdover from their monarchy. He married a young woman from Japan at nineteen, and you were born a year later. Your name is Sora, by the way. Sora Severus."

Heero grunted, opening the folder, and froze when the first object inside was a glossy photograph. It was of a couple, bright and beautiful and smiling at the camera with their arms wrapped around each other. The woman had long dark hair and warm brown eyes, and her stomach was ever so slightly rounded. The man's- his father's- hand was resting on the bump.

"Your father was a well-known philanthropist. He came from old money, and then he made several wise business decisions. He gave an incredible amount of money to various charities, rather like Mr. Winner." Lady Une sighed. "Fourteen years ago, your parents were traveling with you to a charity ball when their car was attacked. Your mother was killed, your father was injured, and you vanished completely. It was assumed the attackers had taken you for ransom, but no demand ever surfaced."

The ex-soldier hardly flinched as Une delivered the news of his mother's death. Even disregarding the fact that there had been only one DNA match… it was as if a part of him had already known. His face expressionless, Heero touched her face in the photo with a finger, and it felt like good-bye. "What happened then?" he asked, a blunt demand for information with little emotion attached. He flipped past the photograph to find a list of his father's business dealings.

"Once your father was released from the hospital, he hired several of the best investigative firms in the world to search for you. After more than a year went by with no sign of you, he apparently secluded himself in a manor in England. We haven't found any indication that he's left the manor's grounds in nearly ten years, though there has been the occasional donation to a charity, and payments to the investigators have continued. The most recent payment was two months ago."

Two months ago. Nearly fifteen years, and the man was still looking for him. He… cared. About Heero. The thought coiled and burned in his chest, just below his heart. He'd cared so much that it drove him into hiding from the world. How could anyone care that much?

Except… he didn't care about Heero. He couldn't. His father didn't know him, he knew a toddler, not a soldier. Not a Gundam pilot. If his father knew Heero, would he still care?

"What was his reaction?" Heero asked, firmly reminding himself that he didn't care what this perfect stranger thought. He didn't need a father, after all.

Une pursed her lips again. "I haven't contacted him yet. I am required to do so by the Family Reconstruction Act, but I felt you should be told first."

"Thank you." The burning feeling was back again, though not quite so strong. It was strange to see Lady Une so… sympathetic, but it wasn't entirely unpleasant. "Please inform me when you do."

She bowed her head. "Of course." Then her mantle as Heero's commanding officer settled back around her, and she straightened in her chair. "If you wish to discuss this with the other pilots, you have permission. You may also take the file with you."

Heero left her office wondering how he could burn and feel so numb at the same time.

-

"It'll be all right, you know. Your dad sounds like a stand-up guy, he'll love you," Duo said, resting his arm on his partner's shoulders. "And if he doesn't, we'll just have to teach him the error of his ways."

Heero grunted irritably, shrugging off the arm as he scanned the busy airport. The crowds bustled around them, not sparing a glance for the two teenagers. "He's late."

Duo poked him in the side. "Oi, not his fault if his transportation's late. I'm just surprised he got tickets that quick. I mean, it's almost Christmas. The airlines have got to be booked solid."

The soldier grunted again. He would have felt better in his uniform, more in control with that symbol of authority, but the others had soundly shouted him down. Meeting his father in civilian dress seemed a small price to pay in order to keep his escort down to Duo only, so Heero had succumbed with ill-grace. Even Duo was dangerous enough. Heero well remembered how they had met; he might not be sure what to make of having a father, but he did know that he didn't want the man shot at their first meeting. Civilians didn't tend to react well to that, Relena being an irritating exception.

Duo poked him again. "Hey, is that him?" The American teenager stood on his tiptoes, using Heero's shoulder for balance. "It is! Shit, man, now I know where you get the hair from!" He started waving frantically, drawing eyes throughout the crowd.

Shooting Duo, on the other hand… No, that would probably make a poor impression as well, tempting as it was. Instead Heero strode out from under his partner's hand, leaving him stumbling and trying to regain his balance. His eyes sought out the man Duo had indicated, one of average height with dark, messy hair. From this distance he did resemble the photograph, but Heero would need to get closer to be sure.

Duo shouted behind him, sounding annoyed, and the man turned towards the noise. Immediately bright green eyes behind archaic glasses, wide in shock, caught Heero's own blue eyes, and the soldier refused to acknowledge how his stomach flip-flopped in response. Heero approached the man, as calm and expressionless as stone, until he came to damn near a parade rest in front of him.

"Mr. Potter," he greeted formally, and did his best to ignore the expression of soul-deep pain that crossed his father's face. "We're here to escort you to Headquarters."

* * *

A/N: From what I understand, the Family Construction Act is a challenge posted somewhere on livejournal. I have no idea where, and have no idea about the details of the challenge (I'd be grateful if someone could fill me in), but with so many good fics coming out recently built around it, I thought I'd give it a try in a direction I hadn't seen anyone take yet. How would Harry react to a second generation of Potters raised as a child soldier? How would Heero react to his father's magic? If the Gundam pilots are family, does that mean Harry now has five children, not just one?

Mind you, I will not be continuing this. Plot bunny officially up for adoption! I already have three HP/GWs to work on, I have no need to add a fourth. Even if it was rather easy to write (though not my best writing). The bunny hit a week ago, and I wrote the majority of it tonight at a semi-family-reunion. And then rewrote it, because I'd completely lost Heero's character. Still not completely happy with it…

Please don't make a big deal about Heero's birth name. I wanted something that sounded decent with Severus, and had a meaning that Harry might pick ("sky"). And wow, I think I just wrote a hetero Harry… better check my temperature, must be sick…  


* * *

14 March 2010


	7. Playtime HP&Small Soldiers

**_Playtime  
_**(Harry Potter/Small Soldiers)  
**Warnings:** Mentions of past mayhem, a bit of profanity.  
**Disclaimer:** I own nothing pertaining to either _Harry Potter_ or _Small Soldiers_.

* * *

Harry winced as he pulled the cold compress away. Head cuts were always a bugger to deal with, since even the slightest scratch bled like a stuck pig, but it looked liked this time the bleeding had finally stopped. Damn, but that nail had sure come close. It figured the blasted things would get into his uncle's tool shed and fall in love with the nail gun…

The step beside him creaked, and Aunt Petunia sat down on the stairs with him. She handed him a cracked glass of water, and Harry had to hold in hysterical laughter. If nothing else, the events of the last twenty-four hours had broken down the barriers between him and his relatives, at least temporarily.

The woman stared around at her destroyed home, her face shell-shocked. "This is going to take forever to clean up…" she murmured faintly, and he nodded. It would almost be easier to move than try to fix what the Commandos had managed to demolish. Every window in the house had been shattered, and he was fairly sure that the eastern supporting wall was no longer structurally sound.

"We'll manage," he finally said, taking her hand. "Whatever happens."

She gave him a watery smile, and then looked up as the sound of shattering glass alerted them to another violation of the kitchen by the firemen. One of them stepped through the doorway and paused as he saw them.

"Er, you shouldn't be in here, ma'am, sir," he said. "It's not safe. If we could get you to wait outside?"

The woman just looked at him, her face blank, until Harry sighed and got to his feet. "C'mon, Aunt Petunia, let's go make sure the paramedics aren't hurting Dudley too much." As much as he hated to say it, given it was Dudley who'd started the entire mess, the lug had actually had a couple of good ideas while they were fighting off the hordes of Commandos. When faced with a common enemy, the two of them worked surprisingly well together.

She squeaked at the thought of harm coming to her baby, and was up and outside almost before Harry could blink. He and the fireman shared a bemused look, and then he followed her out.

The yard didn't look much better than the house did. His aunt's prize-winning begonias had all been burnt to a crisp by improvised flamethrowers, and the carefully tended-to lawn (mostly by Harry) was torn and ravaged. People bustled over it and the neighboring lawns without notice, firemen and bobbies and paramedics tending to the families hurt in the attack. The two men that Dudley had immediately dubbed "nerds", Larry and Irwin, were across the street arguing over a cell phone. Lost for something to do, Harry wandered over to Mr. Carter's relatively untouched yard and sat cross-legged under a tree. He just watched the milling crowd for a while, until he felt a tug on the baggy material of his too-large jeans. The boy wizard looked down to see Archer gazing up at him.

"You are damaged, Harry," the tiny Emissary said, sounding as concerned as his gravelly, programmed voice would let him.

Harry smiled at the leonine features. "I'm fine, really. It's just a scratch. I've gotten worse playing sports at school."

Archer 'hmmed', and turned to look at the crowd. "We cannot stay here," he said after a long pause.

Harry bit his lip unhappily. "I know." He wished there was some way of taking all the Gorgonites to Hogwarts, but the sheer amount of magic in and around the school would fry their chips as surely as the EMP pulse from the demolished power box had the Commandos'. Unless… He knew the twins had been working on a way to combine magic with muggle technology for a couple of years now. If they'd made any progress… "There might be a place I can take you," he said quickly, "but you need to wait a bit while I find something out. Can you do that?"

The Emissary studied him carefully for a long minute. "Very well," he finally replied. "We trust you to do what is best."

The teenager gave him a bright smile in return. First things first, then, he thought as he got up and brushed himself off. Zip on over to Mrs. Figg's- he was a bit surprised that she hadn't already shown up, but apparently the commotion hadn't made it that far- and use her Floo to firecall Fred and George…

The sudden whine of a helicopter's rotors stopped him, and Harry looked up to see a large black machine that looked like military surplus about to land on 4 Privet Drive's lawn. He ran over to his aunt and uncle, who were standing there staring at it.

"And who the blazes are these blokes?" Uncle Vernon growled, glaring at the chopper. "Who do they think they are, flying in here like that? Aren't there aviation laws about that sort of…" He trailed off as they all caught sight of the stylistic globe enclosed by the letter "G" painted on its side.

"Globotech," the man muttered, sounding like his throat had suddenly gone dry. As well it should, given that using his contact inside the corporation to get a birthday present for his son, a toy that hadn't even hit the shelves yet, was very illegal. And worse, said toys had destroyed Uncle Vernon's neighborhood. Harry rather thought that after this, no insurance company would touch him with even a hundred-meter pole.

Before the rotors had even stopped spinning, people in smart business suits were spilling out of the helicopter. One was a man wearing sunglasses and a suit that even Harry recognized was a cut above the rest, and the others hovered around him to further confirm his importance. The man scanned the chaotic lawns and driveways of Privet Drive, until his eyes rested on the little group huddled by the Carter couple's front porch.

"Mr. Mars," Uncle Vernon muttered despairingly. "He's the CEO of Globotech." For a moment he looked as though he wanted nothing more than to hide behind the nearest solid object, but then he straightened and stepped to the front to shield his family.

Harry still didn't like Uncle Vernon, but sometime in the last few hours the man had found at least a few strands of real courage, rather than the blustery, bluffing kind he had always possessed before. Harry could almost respect that, and it was one of the oddest feelings the wizard had ever known.

Mr. Mars pulled off his sunglasses as he neared them, trailed by two suited aides. Cold blue eyes assessed each of them carefully, but Harry couldn't bring himself to care. He'd had nothing to do with Uncle Vernon, ah, liberating the toys ahead of schedule, and it had been a very long night. Perhaps even the strangest night of his life, which was a title in heated competition. He stared back impassively, until the businessman turned his attention back to Harry's uncle.

"Give me a reason not to have you drawn, quartered and stripped of your business license," Mr. Mars said flatly. Yet he didn't seem angry, Harry noticed. More irritated, perhaps with having to get up so early in the morning and fly all the way out to Little Whinging.

Uncle Vernon's courage made one last, reluctant rally. "Y-your chips are faulty!" he proclaimed loudly. "T-those two idiots said so! How dare you put weaponized computer chips into children's toys. Someone could have been hurt!"

Mr. Mars raised a sardonic eyebrow and glanced around at the, thankfully, not-gory-at-all carnage. "So I see," he drawled. "And yet, I can't help to wonder how it came to be that you had so many of our products in your possession. We have yet to actually sell one, you know."

Uncle Vernon flushed and glanced away. Mr. Mars smirked. "I thought so. And I might suggest that it would be very, let's say prudent, of you not to discuss any details of Globotech patented technology with anyone. Particularly reporters. I don't think you'd enjoy prison."

Aunt Petunia, sensing her husband was weakening fast, stepped in. "And just what about our home, Mr. Mars?" she asked, her nasal voice calm and reasonable. "This kind of damage is so very difficult to fix, especially quickly. I'm afraid the gossip will be terrible."

One of the aides had been typing quickly into the small machine she'd been holding as she spoke, and now she pressed a final key and tore off the piece of paper that printed out. She handed it to Aunt Petunia with a supercilious smile. Harry watched his aunt's eyes bug out, and felt his own widen as he stole a peek at it. That was a lot of zeroes...

"B-but I'm sure repairs can be expedited," Aunt Petunia finished, smiling weakly as she handed her husband the check.

Mr. Mars' lips quirked in what really couldn't be termed a smile. "Quite," he said, and turned away. Harry could hear him questioning his male aide on the way back to the helicopter, asking what price the toys had been listed at.

"Tell you what," he heard. "Tack a couple of zeroes to the end of that and then get in touch with our weapons division. There are some rebels in South America who'll find these things _very_ entertaining…"

Entertaining…? After a moment filled with his imagination running wild, Harry dashed after the man. "Wait! Mr. Mars!"

"Yes?" the businessman said, impatience filling his voice. He didn't bother to turn around.

"Does…" Harry was taking a chance, but Mr. Mars was the CEO of one of the largest, most successful corporations in the world. It seemed for less likely that he _wouldn't_ know than that he would. "Does the phrase 'wizarding world' mean anything to you?"

He knew he'd caught the man's attention when Mr. Mars stiffened and then turned to face him. He studied Harry again, this time with more care. "It just might," he said. "Why do you ask?"

Harry took a deep breath. He might be making a huge mistake, but if it worked… "I don't know if you know much about the current… situation, but if they were suitably modified, several purchases might be made of the Commando Elite.

"Those people in South America shouldn't be the only ones to find them… entertaining."

* * *

A/N: Small Soldiers was a fairly violent children's movie made in 1998. It was one of my favorites growing up. Gratuitous violence using common household objects and quasi-Barbie mutilation will do that.

This is actually a one-shot I wrote most of several years ago. I then lost interest in it and its plot sibling, a pre-Hogwarts story involving much the same plot of Dudley acquiring both sets of toys illegally, and foisting the less-desirable but much nicer Gorgonites on his cousin so he could demolish them with his Commando Elites. I was looking for one more short piece to post tonight, and realized I could "finish" this one in half an hour or less.

* * *

25 December 2010


	8. Murphy In Charge HP

_**Murphy In Charge**_

(Harry Potter w/ possible crossovers)

_Warnings: _Minimal violence, discussion of violence.

_Disclaimer_: I own nothing pertaining to Harry Potter.

* * *

Things began to go wrong when the Unspeakable followed Albus Dumbledore to Privet Drive.

Well… perhaps not. Perhaps they'd begun to go wrong earlier than that, when the esteemed Headmaster determined that, as the child's last remaining blood family, the Boy-Who-Lived would be taken to his mother's sister, an out-and-out Muggle. In secret, so that no one would know the new young celebrity wasn't tucked away somewhere safe, maybe with the Ministry or in St. Mungo's.

Or perhaps the turning point was a full day earlier, when the Dark Lord Voldemort had decided to kill the boy and ended up bouncing a Killing Curse off of the toddler's skull only to catch it himself on the rebound.

But then, many would have argued that the ricocheted curse was when things started to go right, after years of being wrong. So, perhaps it was later on. And Dumbledore certainly would have argued that his plan was sound, and indeed, left alone the boy would have survived to reach adulthood, though not necessarily in a happy manner. Later still.

…Yes, we're left with yon Unspeakable. Young Agent Murphy, though that wasn't his birth name, the name he was known by outside of the Department. Outside names were never used within the Department, just as your "true" name was never used outside of it. For Unspeakables, what happened at work stayed at work, or God and his Prophet Merlin help you as your tongue shriveled and your vocal cords boiled.

Hey, there was a reason they were called Unspeakables.

For several years, the Department of Mysteries had been researching just how the Dark Lord Voldemort had managed to rise to power so quickly and effectively. In particular, they were very, very interested in just why no one seemed able to kill the bastard. Most Dark Lords in history had led from the back, just in case one of those stray curses got lucky, but Voldemort was often seen in the thick of battle. Yes, he was good at fighting. Incredibly, frighteningly so, even. But the odds inevitably win out, and they had over a dozen documented occurrences of curses striking the Dark Lord that should have, at minimum, maimed him.

Voldemort was not the first Dark Lord to search for immortality, not by a long stretch. Up until the morning of November the first, 1981, the Unspeakables had been truly concerned that he was, however, the first Dark Lord to actually find it. Then a fifteen-month-old baby had wiped the powerful wizard from the map.

As deeply interested as the Department had been in Voldemort's apparent immortality, it was now just as interested in the little boy named Harry Potter.

Harry Potter, however, had not been relocated to St. Mungo's, the Wizarding hospital, after the attack on his family. Nor had he been brought to the Ministry of Magic. When the Department became aware of Albus Dumbledore's involvement in the matter, Hogwarts was put under surveillance, but that too had turned up no sign of the child. By this time, the Department was most put out. Obviously, the boy should have been sent to them for testing. Finding out how he had survived the Killing Curse would be the magical breakthrough of the century! And they were sure they could have finished with the first battery of tests within a decade or so, so the child would even have been able to go to Hogwarts like any normal wizard. Well, somewhat sure. There would have been so very many tests to run…

As somewhat of a last ditch effort, several more Agents were assigned to monitor Hogwarts, with orders to keep an eye out for Dumbledore. The elderly wizard was quite the chess master, manipulating many of the events around him, but he had the common failing of needing to arrange things at the beginning with his own hands, even if he never touched the matter thereafter. At some point, the Department was sure, he would lead them to the Potter boy.

Agent Murphy was, of course, one of these Agents so assigned to the esteemed Headmaster and Supreme Mugwump. In point of fact, he was the Agent lucky enough to espy the figure of the Headmaster leaving Hogwarts through a side entrance, just as the sun was setting. Purple robes flashed in the golden light as Dumbledore strode towards the gates, leaving the junior agent cursing as he scrambled to keep up, yet keep out of sight. Under most circumstances a Chameleon Charm combined with a Notice-Me-Not would be enough to keep anyone concealed from damn near anything, but the Department of Mysteries tried not to underestimate Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. A couple of previous occasions upon which they had, had turned out supremely embarrassing and resulted in the retirement of half a dozen Unspeakables at absurdly young ages. Murphy tossed a couple of layers of the charms anyway, of course; it simply wouldn't do to keep out of Dumbledore's sight, and still have bystanders pointing him out.

Dumbledore reached the edge of Hogwarts' wards and, after glancing around, proceeded to Apparate. The Unspeakable reached out with his magic, groping for the trail Apparation left ever-so-briefly behind. Being able to track it was always a hit-or-miss proposition, unlike the wide trails left by Portkeys, but Lady Luck was with him for once. He snagged the last faint wisps of the trail and tied a knot of his magic around them, pausing only long enough to cast a bubble of soundlessness around him before Apparating out after the other wizard.

They arrived in a Muggle neighborhood. Bewildered as Murphy found himself to be, he retained enough presence of mind to conceal himself behind one of the Muggle vehicles. It was well he did, for Dumbledore peered about suspiciously, searching for anyone hiding in the shadows, then pulled a small silver instrument from his pockets and put out the street lamps. Murphy was very interested to note that, more than just dousing the light, the instrument applied a general Notice-Me-Not charm to the entire street. Now where had Dumbledore gotten his hands on something like that? Agent Creidhne would love to get his hands on it and take it apart. It'd probably end up as standard kit for the Department.

Once the lights were doused, Dumbledore turned and addressed the shadows. "Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall."

Murphy blinked as a slender tabby cat slunk out of the shadows and turned into a witch. Even in the dark, as distant as he was, he easily recognized his old Transfiguration professor. No one else quite had that stiff, stern carriage she did.

After that the conversation fell to quieter levels than Murphy could hear unaided. It was tempting in the extreme to cast a spell to enhance his hearing- one of the first spells even Aurors learned, let alone Unspeakables- but he didn't dare cast any new magic in this entirely Muggle neighborhood. There was such a dearth of magic of magic around that Dumbledore would surely feel it, which perhaps explained why the Headmaster had chosen it of all places to hold his clandestine meeting.

It was just as well he did not, for completely unintended reasons. Only a few minutes into the conversation, something gave an ear-splitting roar almost directly over his head and crashed onto the street with a great glaring light ahead of it. Once Murphy had recovered from nearly jumping out of his camouflaged skin (but, he would have been proud to say, if he would ever be willing to share that part of the tale at all, his robes remained completely unsoiled), he found that the noisy beast had in fact been an enormous, wildly hairy man on a Muggle contraption Murphy suspect was related to the one he was hiding behind. They both had those strange black wheels, if different numbers of them. The Unspeakable recognized the man as well as another employee of Hogwarts, the groundskeeper Rubeus Hagrid.

Surprised as he was, though less by the man than by the means of his arrival, it was a moment before Murphy spotted the tiny (by comparison) bundle cradled in Hagrid's arms. Dumbledore and McGonagall had both immediately bent to peer at it, blocking any clear view of the bundle's contents, but Murphy had no doubt it contained the missing Harry Potter.

Clever of Dumbledore, really. Evade all of those who would have been watching for the boy at logical places like St. Mungo's and the major Floo points by sending him with a courier on a day-long flight over Great Britain. Yet that meant that the child had yet to receive the attention of a Healer, and Murphy wondered if Dumbledore's intent was to smuggle the Boy-Who-Lived to a private Healer, safely out of the public notice. For all that the Department didn't much care for Dumbledore, they still recognized that he was a good man and the premier wizard of their age, and Murphy had to admit that keeping the boy away from the chaos of his newly-created fans and enemies alike was a worthy cause. The Department would have done the same thing, after all, even if a few more tests would have been involved. Maybe Dumbledore could still be persuaded…

But no. Under his disbelieving eyes, Dumbledore took the sleeping toddler in his arms and walked up to the front door of one of the Muggle houses, and _left the boy on the stoop_. Murphy stared at the scene in utter shock, shaking his head in denial as the wizards and witch nodded solemnly to Potter, and one by one turned to leave, Hagrid on the foul contraption and Dumbledore rekindling the street lamps as he went.

The Boy-Who-Lived… on this night the sole focus of the Wizarding World… left out on cold stone in the middle of a Muggle neighborhood. It boggled the mind. What in Morgana's hells was Dumbledore thinking? _Was_ he thinking? Even the feeling of slowly-condensing magic in the air, proof that the old wizard had cast some sort of protection over the property, wasn't enough to offset the sheer… sheer…

With a blink Murphy came back to himself. He had to focus. Dumbledore's irresponsibility aside, this… was an opportunity. One closing fast, if the feel of the forming wards was any indication. Rising from his crouch at long last, the Unspeakable hurried towards the boy on the stoop.

-:-

Unbeknownst to either Dumbledore or even to Agent Murphy, he had had not just one, but two stalkers that night. Bellatrix Lestrange, one of the Dark Lord's most devoted Death Eaters, had set up camp outside Hogwarts much as Murphy and the other Unspeakables had. Really, the grounds were so thick with clandestine watchers the day of the 1st, it was a wonder that none had tripped over each other in their various methods of invisibility. Unlike the other watchers, however, Bellatrix wasn't at all interested in having Albus Dumbledore lead her to the Boy-Who-Lived. Sure, she would have welcomed the chance to kill the brat if it appeared, but that wasn't what she was actually counting on.

No, at some point Dumbledore would have to leave the safety of Hogwarts' wards. And when that time came, Bellatrix would kill him for the murder of her Lord.

She would likely die in the process, but the witch didn't much care about that faced with the prospect of fulfilling one of the Dark Lord's lifetime goals. If she struck swiftly and strongly enough, with the element of surprise on her side, Bellatrix was certain she would be able to take Dumbledore down with her. She would be able to greet her Lord in the afterlife with pride.

The urgency with which Dumbledore finally left the school, however, left her scrambling to keep up, and only just managing to tag-along on his Apparition trail from quite a distance away. She arrived well down the street from both Dumbledore and the Unspeakable, and by the time the witch was in cursing distance, Hagrid had arrived with Harry Potter.

Never let it be said that Bellatrix wasn't one to seize opportunities. With a fierce smile on her lips, she approached the Boy-Who-Lived, still wrapped in his blanket and oblivious to the world around him. Just in case, she cast a Silencing charm around the babe, and prepared to cast the Cruciatus. Pain unbearable until death seemed a suitable punishment for the Dark Lord's destruction. Or perhaps she wouldn't sustain the curse all the way until the boy died. Children were fragile, after all. It would be amusing to see what the Wizarding World would make of their brain-dead Savior.

"Cruc-" she began, only to drop, unconscious, as Murphy's Stunner nailed her between the shoulder blades.

-:-

"…Well, damn," Murphy muttered, breathing hard. The Lestrange woman's form melting out of the shadows had been enough send him into a panicked run, desperate to intervene before she reached the Boy-Who-Lived. Bellatrix Lestrange was infamous both as one of Voldemort's cruelest Death Eaters, and his most loyal. Murphy hated to think of what she would have done to the tot if he hadn't been there. It was enough to make him wonder, yet again, what the _hell_ Dumbledore was thinking, leaving Potter so unprotected.

Under any other circumstances, the Unspeakable would have been pleased as punch to bring down such a murderous villain as Lestrange. Here and now, however, she presented a great complication. He couldn't simply let her go, while at the same time Potter was his primary mission now that he'd been found. Murphy supposed he could kill her and Banish the body, but that would leave all kinds of magical residue, and even incomplete the protective wards on the property might… protest. Anything unduly violent was out of the picture. Murphy couldn't just Apparate out with her, either, not with Potter in tow as well. There was no way he could avoid Splinching with two Side-Alongs to maintain.

The wizard darted a look upwards at the wards, now visible as a barely-there red dome around the house. Blood wards. Nasty things, those could be, and he was running out of time if he was going to get even himself and Potter out from under them. He wouldn't be able to come back for Lestrange in time, and if Murphy just left her, she'd know both where the Boy-Who-Lived was supposed to be, and that he decidedly wasn't in that place. If only there was some way of convincing everyone Potter was still here…

Agent Murphy had received his Departmental name in large part due to his proclivity for creating brilliant plans that, inevitably, somehow went wrong. He remained convinced, however, that the plans themselves were not at fault, but rather that unforeseen circumstances would intervene and twist the plan off course. His coworkers had learned to take his plans in hand by using a pair of very long fireplace tongs, and if any had been around to witness the dawning of Murphy's newest and perhaps greatest plan, they might have saved everyone a great deal of trouble by killing him themselves.

Giddy with his own brilliance, Murphy drew a magic-limiting cuff from his inner pockets and clamped it around the witch's wrist. The murmur of a quiet password activated it, blocking Lestrange's access to her magical core for as long as the cuff remained on her person; potentially quite a long time, given that it would only release using the password. Then he turned his wand on Lestrange once again, Transfiguring her into a replica of the Potter boy, down to the shallow, lightning-bolt scar that decorated his forehead. The Transfiguration was anchored to the cuff, and then an overpowered Notice-Me-Not was applied to the accessory. The charm would wear off in time, but Murphy could reasonably expect at least a lifetime of several months.

The Potter boy didn't even stir as Murphy used his limited knowledge of healing spells to draw a few drops of blood from the crook of his elbow, placing them in an empty vial from another pocket. The vial was then buried in the house's yard, accompanied by a stasis spell. Murphy had to clamp his mouth shut on a yell of triumph when the nearly-complete blood wards fastened onto the vial.

There was only one step left, and the Unspeakable picked up the babe and cradled him in his arm as he aimed his wand at Lestrange once again. "Ennervate," he said coldly, and the de-aged dark witch- er, wizard, jerked awake with a soft cry. "Bellatrix Lestrange, for the crimes of murder, assault, torture, and the practice of Dark magicks, you are hereby sentenced… to life with Muggles." Murphy couldn't hide his glee at the irony as he cast his final spell.

"_Obliviate_!"

* * *

A/N: This will end up its own story someday, after I get a few others out of the way. Imagine the sheer chaos of Harry Potter growing up in the Department of Mysteries, subject to both constant analysis and, eventually, experimentation. The possibilities are limitless.

As for Bellatrix, the first time a wizard actually checked on "Harry", the cuffs would be discovered; until then, she's stuck at the Dursleys. They rather deserve each other, don't you think? Sadly, Neville's parents are still attacked, but are killed outright rather than tortured into insanity since she wasn't present to take out that little urge on them.

* * *

8 January 2011


End file.
